Churchill Roosevelt World War Two: Behind Closed Doors

[gruts]

I don't normally watch tv, but this new series on WW2 might be worth a look. there's also an accompanying book and dvd....

World War Two: Behind Closed Doors

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/book s/non-fiction/article4995433.ece

Were Churchill and Roosevelt as friendly as legend would have us believe? Was it necessary for the British and the Americans to surrender so much to Stalin at Yalta? Did the British behave honourably towards the wartime Poles? Was Stalin's wartime conduct in any way less morally repugnant than that of Hitler?

These are some of the questions considered by Laurence Rees in a new BBC television series, for which he has written an accompanying book. The author, who created a memorable series on Auschwitz, now seeks to address some less familiar issues of the second world war, throwing light upon its darker nooks and crannies.

Much of the book is based upon material from Soviet archives and fresh testimony from veterans. There are vivid stories about Russians who lived in Murmansk in the days when Arctic convoys docked there. British sailors who ventured ashore met implacable official hostility and startling manifestations of Soviet ruthlessness. One of them, Eddie Grenfell, describes how a drunken Russian petty officer one night appeared at the barracks doors, only to be dragged away by sentries. A commissar appeared shortly afterwards and apologised to the British visitors: “We are sorry you were disturbed like this. It was dreadful that this man should have behaved as he did. You'll be glad to know we shot him.”

Russian women, by contrast, embraced the British with enthusiasm when they had the chance. Valentina Ievleva fell in love with a sailor, and implored him to make love to her: “Bill, I want to have your baby, because I'm not going to love anyone any more.” The sober young man replied: “Val, you're a good girl, I don't want to ruin you. I believe in God and I don't want to be responsible for your ruined reputation.” Valentina told Rees: “I was very hurt by what he said, because I wanted to be a woman...A Russian wouldn't have...well, wasted his time in such a way.”

Most of Rees's book, however, addresses larger and graver issues. He discusses the monumental cynicism of the Nazi-Soviet Pact in August 1939, which precipitated war. Stalin said: “If...Germany finds itself in a difficult situation, then she can be sure that the Soviet people will come to Germany's aid and will not allow Germany to be suppressed. A strong Germany is in the interests of the Soviet Union.” At the signing ceremony, the Russian warlord himself filled the champagne glasses of German diplomats, and proposed a toast: “Because I know how much the German people love their Führer, I want to drink to his health!” Rees suggests that, if Hitler had sought active military assistance from Stalin, this might have been forthcoming. In June 1941, when the German ambassador called on Molotov to deliver a declaration of war, the shocked Soviet foreign minister said: “Surely we haven't deserved this.”

The book discusses at length Britain's dealings with Russia over Poland, noting that the government was much less robust than is sometimes thought about Polish territorial integrity. Poland's borders, shrugged the Foreign Office as early as 1939, were “fluid”. After initial hesitation, both Churchill and Roosevelt became astonishingly willing to redefine them in Russia's favour, to discourage Stalin from seeking a separate peace with Hitler.

Rees rehearses the shocking saga of Stalin's 1939-40 massacres of the Polish elite, now believed to total 21,857 victims, in addition to 300,000 deported to the Gulag. Later, when Poland's General Anders charged Stalin with the fate of several thousand Poles unaccounted for, and presumed to be held in captivity somewhere in the Soviet Union, Stalin replied blandly: “That is impossible. They have escaped.” The incredulous Anders demanded, where to? “Well,” shrugged Stalin, “to Manchuria.”

Owen O'Malley, the British ambassador to Poland's exiled government in London, wrote a brilliant dispatch, discussing the government's brutal decision to suppress knowledge of the Polish massacres in the interests of the vital Soviet alliance: “In handling the publicity side of the affair...we have been obliged to appear to distort the normal and healthy operations of our intellectual and moral judgments; we have been obliged to give undue prominence to the tactlessness or impulsiveness of the Poles, to restrain the Poles from putting their case clearly before the public, to discourage an attempt by the public and the press to probe the ugly story to the bottom.”

Roosevelt, whose relations with Churchill were much less cordial than popular myth suggested, was never much interested in eastern Europe, or Poland in particular. He was delighted by Stalin's willingness to support his cherished plan to create the United Nations, and went far beyond the demands of diplomacy in praising the Soviet leader. “I may say that I ‘got along fine' with Marshal Stalin,” he told America in a 1943 Christmas Eve broadcast, following the “Big Three's” Tehran summit. “He is a man who combines a tremendous relentless determination with stalwart good humour. I believe he is truly representative of the heart and soul of Russia; and I believe that we are going to get along very well with him and the Russian people - very well indeed.”

Rees argues that, given Russia's desperate need for American supplies and later desire for its cash, Roosevelt could have applied far more pressure to the Soviet Union about, for instance, Poland. And if Britain's prime minister was more alive to the perils of Soviet expansionism, he made the same mistake as the US president, in supposing that he might forge an emotional connection with Stalin.

Among the book's considerable anecdotal evidence from Russians and Poles about their war experiences are accounts of relatively unfamiliar horrors, such as the Red Army's February 1945 storming of Budapest. An orgy of rape took place, which anticipated later events in Berlin. In one incident, recounted by a Hungarian named Ivan Polez, Russian soldiers found a 17-year-old maid in a cellar crowded with terrified people. “Please help me! Help me,” the girl cried, as they dragged her forward. Polez said: “Everyone was frozen - stone. This was a terrible moment. And then the owner of the house, a retired military officer, started to talk to the maid. He said: ‘Please make this sacrifice for the sake of the country. And with this you will be able to save the other women here who will never forget this.'” The Russians dragged the girl upstairs. Later, she was thrown back into the cellar, sobbing and appallingly injured. The others in the cellar, in Polez's words, “didn't even dare to look at her”. An estimated 50,000 Hungarian women were raped in Budapest.

The coherence of the narrative suffers a little from addressing so wide a subject in episodic fashion. But Rees is vastly well informed about the second world war. His judgments can seldom be faulted. It is foolish to expect revelations about this period from any of us who write about it today, because almost all sensational claims prove nonsense. But there are many surprises here, and much good detail.

Rees's principal message is that the allied cause was inescapably and deeply compromised by association with the bloodstained Soviets, morally indistinguishable from the Nazis. The West had no alternative save to make common cause with Stalin. The Soviets paid the blood price necessary to defeat Hitler's legions. Had they not done so, British and American soldiers might have filled cemeteries as large as those of the first world war. The relationship between Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill makes an ugly story, and Rees tells it extraordinarily well.

World War 2 - Behind Closed Doors by Laurence Rees
BBC Books £20 pp448 (out now)

World War 2 - Behind Closed Doors
2 DVD set (will be released next month)

[Disco_Destroyer]

20 pages of info enjoy

Winston Churchill and the death of Prince George, Duke of Kent

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?s=9f5922da7f034fbdd459d299 be986fad&showtopic=10003&st=0

[Disco_Destroyer]

The massacre of Katin(spelling) was carried out by Russains not Nazis even some Nazis were Hung for the crime as I understand it!

[gruts]

cheers - a nice forum that I've never seen before. I particularly like the conspiracy section, which is mainly about the Kennedy family....

great thread too - Churchill was undoubtedly a very dodgy person - and the stuff about General Sikorski is something I looked into a few years ago after a visit to Bletchley Park, when there was an exhibit there all about him. I had a long conversation about Sikorski's death with one of the people running the exhibit - which he blamed on Churchill - and how this was apparently part of a much bigger conspiracy involving Churchill, Stalin and the Polish government. it seemed like pure speculation (ie he didn't have any real evidence to back up what he was saying) - but interesting nevertheless.

now that I think of it, Alan Turing's death was a bit suspicious too....

[TonyGosling]

Media Lying over Churchill's Crimes
http://mwcnews.net/content/view/26713/42/


British-Indian Holocaust Image

Churchill is our hero because of his leadership in World War 2, but his immense crimes, notably the WW2 Bengali Holocaust, the 1943-1945 Bengal Famine in which Churchill murdered 6-7 million Indians, have been deleted from history by extraordinary Anglo-American and Zionist Holocaust Denial.

In addition to his participation in British colonial war crimes in South Africa, the Sudan, Afghanistan and India as a soldier "just obeying orders", Churchill was deeply complicit as an Establishment politician, Minister and Leader in the political failures leading to World War 1; the disastrous WW2 Dardanelles campaign; the 1920s bombing of Iraqis and Kurds; political failure leading to World War 2; active promotion of Japanese entry into World War 2, pre-knowledge of the indefensibility of Singapore; pre-knowledge of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor; opposition to Indian Independence from the crippling obscenity of the British Raj; the 1943-1945 Bengal Famine; the anti-Arab anti-Semitic war-time decision to partition Palestine in favour of racist Zionist colonizers; and promotion of Hindu-Muslim antipathy with resultant Partition carnage and the present Pakistan-India nuclear standoff.

These core crimes will be outlined and documented below (for a very detailed and referenced analysis of Churchill's crimes see the revised and updated 2008 version of my 1998 book "Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability" (see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ).

However Churchill's crimes through evil or incompetent involvement in these holocausts have been largely white-washed out of history by a huge body of Anglo-American, Zionist and Australian historians, journalists and politicians. Perhaps the most telling evidence for this entrenched UK, US and Zionist holocaust denial comes from a passage in Tariq Ali's recent book "Street Fighting". An Autobiography of the Sixties" (Verso, London, 2005).

In pages 96-98 of this "Street Fighting" book Tariq Ali describes an Oxford Union debate on a Condolence Motion occasioned by the death of Winston Churchill in 1966 and the response by a brilliant anti-Establishment, anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist socialist Richard Kirkwood who listed the following of Churchill's crimes in opposing the Motion [my added dates in square brackets]: "It was Churchill who had been the most vociferous proponent of the armed intervention against the Russian Revolution of 1917; it was he who had justified the use of troops against the Welsh miners of Tonypandy [1910]; led the siege of Sidney Street in East London against a couple of anarchists [1911]; played the provocateur during the General Strike of 1926; backed the Greek far-right against the resistance in 1944; and opposed the Independence of India. It was for his consistent and long record of vindictiveness and hostility towards workers throughout the world that he was being mourned. For these reasons alone, shouted Kirkwood above the growing din, he, for one, would not stand and observe even a second's silence … He sat down to a chorus of boos, with some of his opponents literally frothing at the mouth. Kirkwood, however, was unmoved. As over 400 people stood up to observe the formalities, about twenty-five of us remained seated and were counted. Kirkwood was delighted. After all, he had separated the Bolsheviks from the Mensheviks"

The extraordinary thing is that, due to British, American and Zionist holocaust denial, even a highly educated, anti-racist, anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist in 1966 was apparently utterly UNAWARE of the immensity of Winston Churchill's crimes, of which arguably the most serious was the deliberate, sustained, remorseless starving to death of 6-7 million Indians in the 1943-1945 Bengali Holocaust – an atrocity larger in magnitude than the World War 2 Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million dead, 1 in 6 dying from deprivation).

I have provided below a catalogue in chronological order of Churchill's crimes that are certainly on a par with those of arch-fiend Adolph Hitler in terms of avoidable deaths. Key avoidable death statistics associated with these British Imperial crimes are given in parenthesis (the default references are my books "Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History" and "Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950" (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya ). [One is compelled at this point to ask the questions, what if Churchill, like many of the British Establishment, had been anti-Jewish anti-Semitic as well as anti-Arab ant-Semitic and what if Adolph Hitler had been more "democratic" and played cricket?]

Here begins the list

1. Involvement as a soldier in British imperial war crimes in India [1896-1899; compelled on advice to join his regiment in India after charges of homosexual abuse; avoidable deaths in British India 1757-1947 1.5 billion; avoidable deaths in the 1895-1897 famine about 1 million; 1899-1900 Indian Famine, 6-9 million deaths]; a stint in Sudan at the Battle of Obdurman [1989; horrendous British atrocities]; a stint in South Africa as a war correspondent and thence as a soldier [1899; Boer (Afrikaaner) Genocide (1899-1902): 28,000 Afrikaaner women and children died in British concentration camps; see: "Australia's secret genocide history" on MWC News: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/22128/42/ ].

2. Churchill was one of the more bellicose members of the British Cabinet prior to the outbreak of World War 1 [World War I Allied military and civilian dead totalled 5.7 million and 3.7 million, respectively, and the German-allied (Central Powers) military and civilian deaths totalled 4.0 million and 5.2 million, respectively; the troop movement-exacerbated Spanish Flu Epidemic killed 20-100 million people world wide: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/26587/42/ ].

3. Churchill was responsible for the disastrous 1915 WW1 Dardanelles Campaign in Turkey [that killed 0.2 million Allied and Turkish soldiers and helped to precipitate the 1915-1923 Turkish Armenian Genocide that killed up to 1.5 million Armenians – a genocide that the holocaust-denying Turks, racist Zionists of Apartheid Israel and US Congressmen refuse to acknowledge as such ].

4. Churchill vigorously promoted the unsuccessful UK and US invasion of Russia in response to the Russian Revolution [1917-1919; millions died in the Russian Civil War and the subsequent the Russian Famine; 7 million died in the circa 1930 Ukrainian Famine; and perhaps up to 20 million died overall in Stalinist atrocities i.e. a death toll comparable to that in World War 2].

5. Churchill was involved in the suppression of the Arab revolt in Iraq (invaded by Britain in 1914) and bombing of Kurdish villages [violent British occupation of Iraq involving everything from poison gas (1920s) to mass murder of children (today) occurred on and off in the period 1914 to the present; 1990-2008 Iraqi excess deaths 4 million; under-5 infant deaths 1.8 million; refugees currently 6 million].

6. Churchill was actively involved in the genocidal suppression of India and vehemently opposed Indian self-determination [1757-1947 excess deaths, 1.5 billion; Victorian era excess deaths, 1837-1901 0.5 billion; 1901-1947 excess deaths 0.4 billion; avoidable deaths in the 1895-1897 famine about 1 million; 1899-1900 Indian Famine, 6-9 million deaths; 1943-1945 Bengali Holocaust deaths 6-7 million].

7. Churchill was again one of the more bellicose members of the British Parliament in the 1930s but is generally positively credited with warning the world about the rise of German Nazism [ World War 2 military deaths 25 million and civilian deaths about 67 million].

8. Churchill actively sought the entry of Japan into World War 2 in order to involve the US and hence ensure victory [35 million Chinese avoidable deaths, 1937-1945; 6-7 million Indians perished in Churchill's deliberate scorched earth policy in Bengal 1943-1945; millions more died in the WW2 Eastern Theatre; see Rusbridger, J. and Nave, E. (1991), Betrayal at Pearl Harbor. How Churchill Lured Roosevelt into World War II (Summit, New York)].

9. Churchill knew well in advance that Singapore was indefensible [8,000-15,000 killed, 130,000 captured in the 1941 Malaya campaign; 14,000 Australian, 16,000 British and 32,000 Indian troops surrendered in Singapore; see Rusbridger, J. and Nave, E. (1991), Betrayal at Pearl Harbor. How Churchill Lured Roosevelt into World War II (Summit, New York)].

10. Churchill did not warn the Americans about the impending Pearl Harbor attack [the US authorities knew too but still did not warn their military personnel in Hawaii; see Rusbridger, J. and Nave, E. (1991), Betrayal at Pearl Harbor. How Churchill Lured Roosevelt into World War II (Summit, New York)].

11. Churchill hated Muslims, Arabs and Indians and remorselessly refused food to 6-7 million starving Indians, rejected Viceroy Wavell's pleas and blocked Canadian attempts at relief [6-7 million Indian deaths – the British Bengali Holocaust death toll being numerically greater than the 5-6 million dead in the Nazi German Jewish Holocaust; see Moon, P. (1973) (editor), Wavell. The Viceroy's Journal (Oxford University Press, London) ].

12. Churchill rejected top scientific advice and supported bombing of German cities instead of protecting Atlantic convoys [0.16 million allied airmen killed; 0.6 million German civilians killed; Battle of the Atlantic almost lost; huge impact on famine in the Indian Ocean region due to halving of Allied shipping in 1943; see Snow, C.P. (1961), Science and Government (The New English Library, London); Behrens, C.B.A. (1955), Merchant Shipping and the Demands of War (Longman's, Green, London, 1955); Taylor, A.J.P. (1975), The Second World War. An Illustrated History (Hamish Hamilton, London) ].

13. Churchill acknowledged the crucial importance of maintaining Hindu-Muslim antipathy to preserve British rule [1 million dead and 18 million Muslim and Hindu refugees associated with India-Pakistan Partition in 1947].

14. Churchill over-rode strong British military objections in 1944 to decide on Partition of Palestine [in 1948 Jews were 1/3 of the population; there are now over 7 million Palestinian refugees; post-1967 Occupied Palestinian excess deaths 0.3 million, post-1967 under-5 infant deaths 0.2 million; excess deaths in countries partially or completely occupied by Apartheid Israel now total about 24 million; 4 million Occupied Palestinians still illegally and abusively imprisoned by racist Zionist goons in their own country].

15. British, American, Zionist and Australian adoption of Churchill's holocaust denying legacy, specifically his famous "history is written by the victors", has ensured continuance of Anglo-American and Zionist atrocities involving invasion, occupation, devastation and genocide [in relation to Occupiers (in parenthesis) 1950-2005 excess deaths in post-1945 occupied countries total 36 million (Belgium) 142 million (France), 24 million (Apartheid Israel), 0.7 million (Apartheid South Africa), 23 million (Portugal), 37 million (Russia), 9 million (Spain), 727 million (the UK) and 82 million (the US); 25 million Indigenous excess deaths in post-1950 US Asian Wars; 9-11 million excess deaths associated with 1990-2008 Bush Wars; post-invasion excess deaths in Occupied Iraq 2 million, refugees 6 million; post-invasion excess deaths in Occupied Afghanistan 4-6 million, refugees 4 million).